


Not In Kansas

by lethargicsloth



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethargicsloth/pseuds/lethargicsloth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Isabelle Foster was a lost, uni-dropout from 2015. She was used to technology, luxuries and a sewage system. Nothing could have prepared her for 1743, or for Jamie Fraser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

“Oh fuck”  
I groaned as I felt the mud suck around my Wellington boot, the hole in the ground that I had missed swallowing my ankle. The scene must have been quite comical; a girl swaddled in layers and layers of cloth, jumping about, desperately trying to unearth her lost foot from the dark, murky depths of the earth. And my uni professor told me I lacked imagination, what a douchebag.  
Once my foot was free – and my hands covered in mud and things that looked like mud – I continued on my walk through the field. My Granny had sent me on a trip to the local village for some groceries, which were currently bumping about in my backpack, which unfortunately for me was miles away through a bunch of fields. Unlike my Granny, I had not been raised in a village, but in the glorious city of London. Why I left still confused and irritated me, but that was life I supposed. When it throws you a curveball, you just have to duck out of the way and crawl away to a small cave. As you can see, I’m not so great at sports metaphors. Not great at sports in general, to be honest.  
I trudged the last twenty minutes to Granny’s cottage in tranquil silence; the only sound the singing of birds and the rushing of a nearby river. I’d always loved coming up to Granny’s cottage in Scotland as a child, and I hadn’t realised how much I had missed it since I’d been away. Granny was my father’s mother, and when my parents had split up, I had lived with my mother in London and had had little if no contact with my father’s family. To be honest, I was glad that my parents had split up; they had been miserable, spending hours and hours screaming at each other. Mum was happier now, remarried and living in London with her new husband, and Dad was off working in Europe on some big corporate contract that kept him too busy to settle down again. Now, finding myself with nowhere to go, I decided instead to see my Granny again, instead of living with Mum and Kevin, my step-dad, and feel the embarrassment of living with two horny fifty-year olds, whilst having no life and no prospects of my own. Sometimes I wondered whether I should go back to uni and finish my degree.  
“Come in child, you’re going to die of cold!”  
Granny appeared in the doorway of her small cottage, her silhouette shadowing the grass in front of her porch. Her smile and beckoning hands was enough to draw me out of my stupor and away from thoughts relating to the hellhole I had left only two weeks ago. I had my reasons for leaving, and they were good ones; Granny made sure to remind me whenever she was cooking something for me or knitting me another bobble hat.  
After I had set out Granny’s groceries and she had done her magic with them, I sat, belly full, on the armchair next to the fire. Granny hobbled into the living room, a blanket in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other. She folded the blanket over her knees once she had sat down and took a sip from her whisky, smacking her lips afterwards. My Granny was almost as stereotypically Scottish as you could get, her blanket even being the blue and green tartan colours of the ancestral family clan. Though I had kept my mother’s maiden name of Foster, I still liked the connection I had to the Adamson family name, the Gordon Clan and its history. And I loved it when Granny would tell me stories of the Gordon Clan, especially the story about the first Gordon Clan member saving the Scottish king from a wild boar. The lilt to Granny’s accent, especially when combined with warmth from the fire and a full belly, was enough to drift me off to sleep, dreaming of green forests, wild boars and hoards of angry Scots.  
I awoke sometime around five in the morning, still tucked into the armchair, with Granny’s tartan quilt now folded over my body. I gently untucked an arm, feeling the stiff joints pop and roll, and let out a small groan at the feeling of discomfort. I always managed to fall asleep in the armchair listening to Granny’s stories, and I never learnt my lesson the morning after. Gently massaging my stiff neck, I got up gingerly from the chair and went in search of some breakfast.   
Granny was already pottering about the kitchen when I went in search of some caffeine; I swear the old woman had the heart and mind of a twenty-year old. Pouring me a cup of coffee and placing a bun on a plate, she handed both to me with a smile.  
“Aye, you look like you took a good beating, dear. Sometimes I forget you city-folk aren’t used to walking about all day in fields and a good, hot dinner afterwards.”  
I chuckled over my coffee, taking a careful sip. “Granny, it’s London, not a city in a sci-fi film. There’s plenty of walking and plenty of warm food about.”  
Granny scoffed, waving my response away. She looked at the clock on the wall, frowned, and looked back at me. She had been on edge for the last few days, though she hid it well. Something was weighing on her mind, and it was going to happen today, I thought. Though what that thing was, I had no idea; Granny was, to be honest, crazy as fuck, so I humoured her highland superstitions most of the time.  
“You know, it’s October 30th today,” she began. I looked up from my inhaling of her delicious baking. “Yeah, so?”  
“It’s Samhain, or as you youngsters call it, Halloween.”  
“Yes,” I said, sighing, “I know what Halloween is Granny. I also know what Samhain is, I’ve seen my fair share of horror movies.”  
“Aye, but you haven’t seen Samhain in Scotland before, dear. It’s very different here, up in the Highlands, to your gallivanting about in the streets begging for a toffee in London town,” she said, waving an admonishing finger at me. I chuckled again, finding humour in Granny’s old-age superstitions. I would say that she had seen one too many Halloween films but Granny hardly owned a television let alone Sky.  
“What’s your point Granny?”  
“Well,” she started, making me feel like I was about to listen to a Braveheart speech, “In the wee hours of the morning of Samhain, the local witches and druids like to go to Craigh na Dun you see, and call upon the spirits and the like.”  
I looked at Granny with a straight face. “Gran, that’s utter bullshit.”  
Ducking my head underneath the countertop, I just about managed to avoid getting swatted in the head with the cloth in Granny’s tight fist.  
“You’ll do better to remember not to take the mick out of tradition, lass. Just because you lived in London don’t mean you’re all English.”  
I crawled under the countertop, coming to a stop right by Granny’s feet. Twisting up behind her small frame, I wrapped my arms around her in what seemed to be a hug, but what was really a way to get her to stop hitting me. That woman could take down a WWE fighter, I tell you.  
“Ok Granny, ok, no bashing Scottish superstitions – I mean, traditions,” I corrected myself after getting an eyeful of venom directed my way.  
“Aye, I think it would be good for you, especially in your ignorant state, to go and see the witches in action. It’ll open your eyes to Scotland, I tell you.”  
And that’s how I found myself making the climb up Craigh na Dun at 5:30 in the morning, wrapping the tartan blanket ever closer around me. I was wearing two jumpers, a long sleeve shirt, a long skirt with stockings and a pair of beat-up old Doc Martens, and I was still bloody freezing. Now I regretted not agreeing to visit my father in sunny Spain when I had the chance.  
I was still grumbling about the cold, watching the air flow out of my mouth as I whined and groaned, when I heard the chanting. The sun still hadn’t come up fully and the hill-top of Craigh na Dun was alight with bulbs of light; the witches or druids (or really just a bunch of women I saw about town in their nightdresses) were waving around lanterns and dancing some sort of interpretive dance that looked like they were getting attacked by lice. It was odd and beautiful; I felt mesmerised but fearful at the same time, unable to tear my eyes away. The wind started rushing in my ears and a shiver ran up my spine. The trees were dancing in the growing wind and I had to grip tightly onto the stone I was hiding behind in order to stay put and hidden. This wasn’t like the stupid rituals you saw on TV, no, this was… something else. I felt the power from the dance and the chanting flow through the earth and up into my body, emptying my mind of all thought.  
Then the sun rose and the chanting stopped.  
My mind was no longer filled with white noise, instead it was filled with fear, confusion and curiosity. What had I just witnessed? Did I make all that up or had something really happened?  
I shook my head. No, you daft cow, of course nothing happened. Magic didn’t exist, and neither did spirits or witches or druids. All this was make-believe, just as it had been hundreds of years ago, mere propaganda spread round by the church at the time to frighten the populace into subjugation. All I had felt was the wind, and that was it.  
Once the women had cleared off, I walked towards the stones, the curiosity building up inside me. I listened carefully for any signs of other life, not wanting to be caught up here in the early hours of the morning. The sun had fully risen now, casting a gorgeous bronze glow on the glistening, green grass. The stones had an ethereal glow to them, the sun bouncing off in waves. I wandered closer, my hands outstretched; something was calling, begging for me to come closer, to touch them. The wind started up in my ears again, drowning out all sense and reason. I wondered whether it was because of the high altitude of the hill-top, why I could hear the wind so, and then I laid out my palms on the stone, feeling its cold, rough texture. The wind finally stopped blowing in my ears, and everything went still. Until it didn’t.  
The only way I can describe what I felt next is comparing it to that feeling you get on a huge rollercoaster. One minute you’re chugging away peacefully on a straight line, feeling like you’re not moving at all, and then suddenly you’re tilted forwards, everything rushing towards you and you can’t make out a single thing, you’re going too fast. The air escapes your lungs like a burglar from a jail cell, you flap your arms about trying to hang onto something and scream in terror when you can’t; and then everything stops as soon as it started, and you find yourself calmly continuing on the straight line, only your heart won’t stop beating like a boxer. That is how I felt, when I found myself sprawled out on the grass in front of the stone I had just touched. My chest was heaving from underneath my layers, my hair in a halo around my face.  
I groaned, feeling my muscles pulling from whatever I had just experienced. Running a hand over my face, I looked around at my surroundings. Nothing had changed, yet the atmosphere felt completely different. Gone was the peaceful, sunny morning, instead replaced by an anxious sunrise, the unknown possibilities of the day filling the hill-top. It reminded me of every scene before a battle in movies, when you don’t know what’s about to happen but you know that whatever it will be, will be so exciting.


	2. Back To The Future... Or The Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabelle wakes up in a field, gets shot at and realises that perhaps she hadn't stumbled upon some nerdy reenactment of a fight between Scotsmen and Redcoats... but it might even be real.

CH 2  
Slowly pushing myself up, I grabbed my tartan blanket from where it had fallen off me and wrapped it around my shoulders like a shawl. A fine mist had settled lower in the valley and it sent me in shivers just looking at it. Next time Granny told me to go look at a bunch of crazy women dance about in their nightdresses before sunrise, I would tell her to just fuck off and let me sleep. All I wanted right now was a warm mug of coffee and some shortbread. My stomach rumbled at the thought; yep, definitely loads of shortbread.  
I looked around, trying to remember where I had come from, and started back down the path to the cottage. Either I hadn’t been looking properly or it had been too dark to see, but the path seemed more overgrown than I had remembered. Weeds, bushes and mounds of grass covered the places where I could have sworn I had walked only something like half an hour ago.   
Suddenly I heard twigs snapping; shouts echoed across the clearing, more twigs snapping. I wondered closer to the noise, even though all of my senses were telling me not to. A flash of red through the greenery and my curiosity, and apprehension, increased.   
“Hello? Who’s there?” I shouted out, wondering who else was walking through the highlands of Inverness at six in the morning. Someone appeared out of the corner of my eye a few feet off, dressed in a red coat, breeches… and with a musket?  
A bang went off and I looked behind me, seeing a bullet hole in the trunk of the tree. Now, either I had stumbled across a movie set, a historical re-enactment or… I didn’t want to think of another option, given the logical ones I had already listed. I heard another gun go off in my direction and my ‘fight or flight’ instincts kicked in – as in I ran for my bloody life.  
I stumbled through brush, feeling the small thorns prick and tear at the exposed skin of my hands, one gripping on fearfully to the blanket around my shoulders; Granny would kill me worse than these guys if I lost it. I came to a clearing by a river, wheezing heavily and heart pumping against my chest. Looking around wildly, I stopped in my tracks as another man in a red coat stood up from the river bank and turned around to face me, a wary look on his face. I took a cautious step back, wondering if he was friend or foe. To be honest, anyone with a gun was probably someone to stay away from.  
“And what have we here?” he said, a posh English accent escaping from him. He looked tired, and there was blood caked on his hairline. I didn’t like the malicious look that entered his dark eyes, and turned quickly to flee. I’d had enough of guys leering at me at uni, thanks, and I wasn’t about to repeat that experience any time soon.  
“No, no, where do you think you’re going?” he grinned, gripping my arm tight and twisting me round until my back was against a rock. He was far too close for comfort, this dude, and I was too tired and too scared to be dealing with this right now.  
“Let me go!” I ground out, his other hand gripping my chin and cheeks together so that my speech came out slightly muffled. His eyebrows shot up at my voice, whether it was because he thought me funny for speaking out or for my obvious English accent in the Scottish countryside.  
“What’s a pretty Englishwoman like you doing out here, all alone?” he drawled, his free hand drawing patterns on my arm in a menacing way. His eyes caught the blanket around my shoulders and they light up like fireworks on Guy Fawkes’ Day.  
“Oh I see, we have here a little Scottish whore,” he whispered, his face now mere centimetres away from mine. His breath reeked and his nails dug into the skin of my face, causing me to whimper and close my eyes in discomfort. A chuckle escaped him, a low chuckle that in any other scenario I may have found attractive, but considering my current situation, I found just plain creepy.   
“Who you calling a whore, you bastard?”   
I heard the slap before I felt it; the sting rushed at me like a horse as the blood was able to circulate properly around my cheeks. He must have been wearing some sort of a ring too because soon I felt the taste of copper on my lips. I just hoped this guy wasn’t too much of a sadist.  
His eyes seemed to light like a fire in a fireplace as they followed the gentle drip of blood on my now swollen lips. Oops, I think I spoke too soon.  
“Who are you then, if not a whore? Why are you walking through the woods unaccompanied, in your peasant clothes, if you aren’t a whore?”  
I spat the blood that had been collecting in my mouth into his face. He didn’t seem to like that, not one bit.   
“My name is Isabelle Foster, and for your information my Granny lives near here and I was walking to her cottage. Now, if you would kindly let me go,” I seethed, one hand gripping my waist, another now unsheathing a sword from his side. The blade was cool and hard against my neck, the tip digging into the vein. He could easily kill me then and there, and he knew it. But he seemed to like games, and I wondered how easily I could use that to get myself out of there.  
“Well, I could… but unfortunately for you, I don’t believe you. There’s no one living around here, no cottages, and certainly no Granny to save you, Isabelle.”  
He pushed me around, my face now feeling the sting of the rock against it instead of his fingers. A cold, clammy hand started to push up my skirts and I started to panic, screams of terror leaving my mouth. There had to be someone else around that would hear me; I tried squirming out of his arms, kicking, pushing back but it was no use. At my height, all of my efforts probably felt like feathers against his size and strength. Hot, fat tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I felt his hand roam higher and higher up my leg, feeling for the material that was my underwear to pull down so he could have his way with me. I never thought I would find myself in this situation but here I was, helpless, being overpowered by some random stranger dressed like a Redcoat. I had to literally clamp down on my lips to make a badly-timed joke about sexually frustrated cosplay nerds, knowing that it would not only anger the man even further, but when my best friend Leon found out he would attempt to use the Force on me.  
Just as I was closing my eyes, waiting for the inevitable pain, it was gone; instead, it was replaced by a gust of wind and a groan from the man behind me. Turning, I found him lying on his back, temporarily knocked out by a smaller body. It was a man, apparently, dressed in traditional Scottish clothes, like the ones you see on historical dramas. He turned to me and said something in Gaelic that I couldn’t understand, but his hand motions indicated that he wanted me to go with him.  
Needless to say, I was out of there quicker than you could say, “Haggis”.  
The man dragged me through the woods, away from the scurrying redcoated men who went to find the man who had attacked me. A horse was waiting, tied to a tree, not far from where the man had rescued me. Again he indicated to me what he wanted, holding his hands out to give me a boost up onto the horse. I had never ridden a horse, and to be honest, after that ride, I don’t think I ever wanted to again. The man stank of something foul, like he’d been on a bender for a week and hadn’t gone home in the meantime. The ride was uncomfortable to say the least, especially with this man’s hands holding onto my waist; I know he did it to make sure I didn’t fall off or something, but it only reminded me of what I had just escaped. I breathed a small sigh of relief when we appeared to be slowing down, in front of a rundown shed-like building.  
I still had no idea where I was, though I started to think that perhaps that was the wrong question; when was I, but that terrified me more than I could say. I had indulged in the fantasies of children, fangirling over things like Star Wars, Star Trek and The Hunger Games. I just never thought I’d actually be thinking whether I had experienced time travel to the past. Why I had to stay in Scotland and not go somewhere cooler was beyond me, as well.  
We stopped, the man getting off the horse and waiting to help me down as well. I made sure that my skirt, now covered in splatters of mud and grass, did not bunch up and still came down to my ankles. My mum had always hated my dress sense, said I looked like the inside of a charity shop where only old people donated clothing, but now I was beginning to thank my modern, odd sense of dress because it would hopefully fit into wherever I currently was.  
The man pushed open the door and prodded me in like I was cattle; it definitely felt like I was cattle, with all the other eyes on me. Several other men stood up in surprise, their eyes raking my form up and down. It had been slowly drizzling on our journey here and my hair had curled slightly at the edges, the curls tickling the tips of my ears. Ah yes, probably should have thought about that when I was debating whether or not I had time-travelled; I had cropped my hair in a rebellious fashion after I had left uni, something my mother hadn’t been too fond of but Granny had loved it, said I looked like a highland fairie. Now I realised that, wherever I was, though I may have dressed in fashion, my hair would definitely make me stand out. Well shit, so much for blending in.  
Some of the men started saying things in Gaelic, things I couldn’t understand but I guessed at their meaning by the look in their eyes. To placate my poor heart – man I was so glad that my family didn’t have a history of heart problems – I huddled further into the blanket, which was miraculously still around my shoulders, and the sight of the green and blue chequered material definitely surprised some of them. Hopefully it would provide me with a smidge of protection from, who I was guessing were, these Scotsmen.   
Out of my peripheral vision, one of three men who had been sitting around the fire got up, coming around me. “Let’s have a look at you then, lass,” he said in a thick Scottish accent. He brought me further into the light of one of the fires, looking carefully at me face. His brow furrowed in concentration, taking in everything that there was to see, his gaze stopping for a second longer on the tartan cloth I gripped onto.  
“It’s rude to stare you know,” I said. I really needed to learn to shut up in dangerous situations, I thought, when his mouth thinned.  
“What’s your name, lass?”  
I thought about using a fake name, and then realised I hadn’t with the man from before.   
“Isabelle Foster, Belle for short.”  
The man looked confused. “Where’d you get the tartan?”  
“It was my Granny’s,” I said truthfully. “She gave it to me before I went walking, to keep me warm.”  
This seemed to be a suitable answer for the man, but still he looked confused. “What’s her name?”  
“Janet Claire Adamson, she’s my paternal grandmother, descended from the Gordon clan,” I said. That answer seemed to clear things up for the man, who nodded in understanding. He looked back at the man who had originally rescued me, and asked him where he had found me.  
“Aye. She seemed to be in a bit of a tight spot with a certain Captain of dragoons, with whom we are acquainted. There seemed to be some question as to whether the lady was or was not a whore,” he said, looking at me with suspicious eyes.   
“And what was the lady’s position in this discussion?” the second guy asked, his eyes holding me in suspicion as well. I stared back, defiantly, squaring my shoulders and holding my head up high.  
“No, I am not a whore, never have been and never will be.”  
“We could put her to the test,” one man across from me said cheekily, others laughing with him. I gave him my best death glare, one that terrified my uni flatmates every time they stole my food. I am very protective of my food.  
“I don’t hold with rape,” the man said, obviously their leader. I mean, the moustache said it all really. The laughing stopped after his look. “Besides, we don’t have time for it anyway.” Well wasn’t that comforting.  
“Dougal,” my rescuer said, “I’ve no idea what she might be or who, but I’ll stake my best shirt she’s no a whore.”  
Now this guy I liked. I sent him a small smile and saw him look down at his shoes, bashfully. The leader, Dougal, nodded and moved back to his original position by the larger fire.  
“We’ve got a good distance to go tonight, and we must do something about Jamie first,” Dougal said. It was only then when I turned to follow him with my eyes did I properly notice the last two men of this company, one of whom looked to be in a lot of pain. They all circled around him, whilst some others hung back to continue eyeing me up like predators. I stared at them back, hoping that they hadn’t expected me to be so forward and unresponsive to their submissive stares; they looked away after they realised they wouldn’t be getting anything more out of me. Now left alone, I crept towards the group of men, wondering what was wrong with the man they called ‘Jamie’. I envisioned a large, boulder-sized man with a bald head and thick-set eyes; I couldn’t see exactly what he looked like through the bodies.  
“Out o’ joint, poor bugger. You can’t ride with it like that, can you, lad?” Dougal said sympathetically. His head was shining in the light of the fire, looking like a round, shiny egg; I just about managed to stifle my laughter without being spotted by one of the other men.  
“I don’t mean to be leaving him behind,” Dougal said, obviously frustrated.  
“There’s no help for it then; I’ll have to force the joint back,” one of the men who had eyed me up said. He handed the darkened silhouette of Jamie a small pouch made of leather, probably holding some sort of alcohol, knowing these Scots. I looked around one of the taller men in front of me and felt my mouth go dry as if I had just drunk alcohol. Jamie’s thick, red curls glowed in the light of the fire; a strong, muscled arm held the skin to his stubbled mouth and he took a draught of the drink, the muscles in his back and in his legs tensing and relaxing as the pain probably coursed through him, both at the burn in his throat and from his obviously dislocated arm. I knew nothing of medicine, my degree in uni having been English, but I could easily see the joint popping up from under the skin of his toned arm. If I wasn’t afraid that I would get tortured by these men that were from a whole other fucking time to me, I would totally tap that.  
The men were talking in Gaelic again, moving to stand around Jamie as they readied to pop the joint back into place. My mum had always loved watching the medical shows like ER or Grey’s Anatomy but I hadn’t, finding them creepy and frightening, so I looked away as they grabbed onto Jamie and started to pop his arm back into place. The scream he made was terrible, and probably alerted anyone around the hut that we were there. I heard a disgusting, sucking noise as the joint was moved back into place, and heard the men talking and laughing amongst themselves as they started to move about again. Dougal announced that we were leaving, and I started feeling very awkward. What was I going to do? Go with these strange men? Wait for another Redcoat to find me and try to rape me? I knew which one I would rather avoid then and there, but would the Scots agree to taking me?  
I stood around awkwardly as the men started going outside, most likely to their horses, waiting for someone to say something. Dougal, the leader, was one of the last to leave the hut, and saw me standing there, swinging my arms slightly and looking lost.  
“What you standing about for lass?” he asked. I looked at him, surprised that he was talking to me.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean, hurry on lass, you’re coming with us.”  
He grabbed me by the arm, but when I flinched away as a slight pain went up my arm from where he touched, he let me go and paused before rolling up the sleeves of my jumpers. There was a thick, purple line running like a band around the top of my arm, most likely from where the Captain, whoever he was, had grabbed me before.  
“Aye, you don’t want to stay here and wait for the English to come and find you again, do you?”  
“You don’t need to ask me twice,” I mumbled. I swear I thought his mouth tweaked into what could have been a smile. He pushed me gently with a hand at my back, and led me outside to the horses. He stopped in front of a large, brown horse, laden down with sacks and a heavy saddle. The tall, muscular, drool-worthy Jamie appeared next to it, cradling his injured arm.  
“Jamie, you’re taking the lass. We’re taking her to Colum, he’ll decide her fate,” Dougal said ominously. I don’t know who this Colum guy thinks he is, but the only one who will be deciding my fate is me and only me, thank you very much. Either way, it appeared I had no say in the matter, as Dougal left my awkward and seething self in the care of Jamie. He too looked slightly awkward at being in charge of me, only looking a year or two older than I was.  
“Up you go, lass,” he motioned for me to get up onto the horse. He tried to move his injured hand but the pain was evident on his face. I waved off his help, grabbed onto the sides of the saddle and hoisted myself up – thankfully not making too much of a fool out of myself. I had to move my skirt about to make sure I wasn’t accidentally flashing anyone, not that I think they’d mind. I noticed Jamie looking a little unsure of himself as he readied to climb up onto the horse so I extended my hand in what in thought was a kind gesture; he looked at my hand like it was green and oozing purple pus.  
“You really think you’re going to get your ginormous body up with only one able hand?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I could see him mulling the thought over in his head, his brow furrowing like a cute little puppy. It was adorable to watch honestly.  
Finally he gave up and realised that this was his only option of getting onto his horse without causing himself some great physical pain; the pain to his ego, he would have to live with. Grabbing onto my hand with a firm grip with one leg in the stirrup, Jamie swung his body onto the horse behind me. I had to shift slightly in the saddle, feeling his body right up against mine. Whilst I had no objections whatsoever to this invasion of privacy at any other time, the scene reminded me once more of what I had escaped from, and feeling Jamie reach round me to grab onto the reigns, I sat stock still on instinct, leaning away from him. He noticed my obvious discomfort and tried to lean back to give me some space, shifting his hips backwards slightly.   
“Sorry lass, but there’s not much room in this saddle I’m afraid,” he said. I felt a hand at my hip, tugging on something. Again I flinched away from contact. “I’m just trying to get my plaid loose to cover me, but I can’t do it one-handed.”  
Feeling foolish in thinking that this guy was trying to feel me up when he was really trying to get his own blanket to cover himself, I shifted forwards, leaning down the neck of the horse, so Jamie could undo his plaid. Once he’d gotten it loose, I reached around and helped him cover himself seeing as he only had one working arm at the moment; the other was lying gingerly at his side.  
“Sure, laddie,” I said in my best mock-Scottish accent, once I’d finished tying the material around Jamie’s shoulders. I felt his body shake behind me in snorts of laughter.  
“What?” I asked.  
“You’re accent is terrible, lass,” he said in between chuckles. With his free hand he reached in front of me to grab the reigns, which I took and placed in his hands. Our hands touched, if for but a moment, and I felt a spark of electricity startle me just as the rain began to fall harder on our heads. I felt his eyes on me but I kept my head forwards, my hand falling away.  
“I’m English, so sue me. Besides, if you can keep demeaning me by calling me lass like I’m some child, then I can call you laddie. Seems only fair,” I mumbled, feeling stupid and out of place. I shivered from the rain and cold, tugging Granny’s blanket tighter around my own shoulders. I realised then, thumb caressing the material, that I wouldn’t see Granny again, probably not ever. I didn’t understand how I got here, wherever here was, and I had no way of going back. All I had left of my world was this blanket, that was weighing down on my shoulders from the rain it was soaking up. I felt sombered suddenly, even when joking with Jamie.  
“Aye, you’re right. I’m sorry Isabelle, it’s just that you seem like you’re younger. If you want, you can call me lad, or whatever you like,” Jamie said, sensing a change in my mood as we began trotting after the rest of the company. I shivered again, not at the cold this time, but at the way my name seemed to slip of his tongue.   
“I prefer Belle, and I suppose my height doesn’t help my age, lad,” I returned, trying to bring back the light-hearted atmosphere to the conversation. Jamie did that thing that guys did that I loved, when they laughed in their chests; I could feel the rumble of his laughter vibrating against my back as I leaned ever so slightly backwards, feeling the exhaustion slowly overtake me.  
“How old are you then?” he asked, tightening the hold he hand on the reigns so that the arm reaching around me acted as a barrier between me on the horse and me falling off the horse.  
“I’m newly twenty years old,” I replied with a yawn.  
“Not too much younger than myself, then,” came Jamie’s reply. If he said anything more, I didn’t catch it, the sleep was hitting me now like a truck. I vaguely heard him say that I could sleep without fear of him or anyone else harming me, that he’d protect me whilst I slept. I was too far gone to catch the look in his eyes as he watched my head fall back against his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> I was hit with the writing bug and I have never written so much so quickly before with a story. This is AU without Claire but some of the dialogue of other characters will be the same as from the TV show, therefore DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Duh. If I did, I'd own Jamie. And he'd always have his shirt off so...


End file.
